The National Voice of Children’s Arts

Campaigning – for children’s right to the arts.

Connecting – children’s arts practitioners.

Celebrating – children’s arts in the UK.

We are the voice of children’s arts in the UK. We aim to improve the cultural wellbeing of children by focusing attention on and encouraging support for children’s arts, and by celebrating and sharing the achievements of our practitioners.

“Every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.”Article 31, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Click on the picture to hear children’s own voices in this video made for ACA by Whitespace with the support of Bath Festivals, 5x5x5=creativity and the egg.

Putting Children First

Children up to twelve years of age make up 15% of the population, but Freedom of Information requests made by Action for Children’s Arts last year revealed that only 1% of public funding for the arts supports work for children.

Action for Children’s Arts believes that the arts are as important for children as they are for adults – and deserve a fair share of the funding.

Action for Children’s Arts is the only UK charity supporting all the arts for all children.

Terry Jones,Nick Park,Joanna McGregor,Lynne Reid Banks and Shirley Hughes OBE are just a few of our Patrons. Click here to see them all.

“With the ever-increasing focus on narrow academic success, it is more vital than ever to create an arts context for education. The lessons learnt in participating in drama and the performing arts – be they interpersonal skills or the mysteries of group dynamics – are often more useful in later life than a whole bookful of learned facts.”Terry Jones

If you support our aims, you can support ACA by:

becoming a member – click here to find out how much it costs and how you can benefit

making a donation – as much or as little as you want, using the link on this page.

Noticeboard

Notices from ACA members appear here – news of new projects, shouts for help, anything they want other people to know about.If you’re an ACA member and want to put something on the Noticeboard, send an email to membership@childrensarts.org.uk.

Click on the title of any notice to read it in full.

CRAEare running their ‘See it, Say it, Change it’ project and recruiting 20 children and young people to lead the project. Please visitCRAE See it, Say it, Change itfor more details

A response to the recent Warwick Report

Thank you to all involved for the hard work and we say yes to the 5 goals and yes again to the 53 recommendations with the following responses. Click here to read our response in full.

Immersive Arts for Young Audiences – Inspiration Day at Shakespeare’s Globe

Read the full report on the ACA inspiration day held at Shakepeare’s Globe in 2014 here

JM Barrie Awards 2014

Awarded to Bernard Cribbins OBE, in recognition of the decades of delight he has bestowed on generations of Children through his wonderful TV, theatre and film work. The event was hosted by the BBC and held in the Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House on 13 November 2014.

The Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Arts was presented to Northern Ballet for their short ballets for small people. Two of these have ben adapted for broadcast by by CBeebies and over one million viewers have watched these beautiful shows. The Ugly Duckling was nominated for and subsequently one a Childrens BAFTA.

Speaking up for Children’s Arts

As the national voice of children’s arts we take every opportunity we can to make the case for the importance of the arts in children’s lives.

Click on the pictures to hear two of our patrons, Sir Ken Robinson and Michael Morpurgo OBE, making the case on our behalf in specially recorded videos.